


side effects

by windsprout



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nail Polish, Wisdom Teeth, gratuitous use of netflix, roxas is in a lot of pain and lea gets to take care of him, the beauty of painkillers, which is apparently a tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-24
Updated: 2015-07-24
Packaged: 2018-04-10 23:21:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4411856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/windsprout/pseuds/windsprout
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Roxas just wants to be able to open his mouth without pain shooting through his jaw.</p>
            </blockquote>





	side effects

**Author's Note:**

> i'm a minion enabler
> 
> roxas is 17?? lea is 19?? what are timelines?? this might be expanded in an actual au universe but for right now it's a standalone of mushed up modern au headcanons that don't get properly explained in this trainwreck
> 
> (☞ﾟ∀ﾟ)☞
> 
> tw for mentions of blood, general teethiness

“Never gonna give you up—”

“Roxas—”

“Never gonna let you down—”

“Roxas, stop—”

“Never gonna—”

“ _Okay_ , your brother owes me so much for this.”

Unfortunately, Roxas’s strangely incredible singing doesn’t actually stop, and Lea contemplates the merits of banging his head on the steering wheel for all of three seconds before he realizes that he has a phone. A very good phone, actually, that takes high definition videos and shit, and he’ll probably get pulled over but it’s totally worth it.

Roxas, for the most part, doesn’t seem to notice; instead, he’s got his feet kicked up on the dash and his hands are flailing around, and the swelling has yet to subside in his cheeks and jaw. It makes for an interesting sight, though Lea’s glad the painkillers are still swimming through Roxas’s system, otherwise this wouldn’t be _nearly_ as fun.

“...do you think pigs know that humans like to eat their skin?”

“Roxas, you hate bacon.”

“Yeah, but do _pigs_ know that? I love pigs. They have noses.”

“Most animals have noses,” Lea points out, though it turns out to be redundant and Roxas just shrugs. The car makes a steep swerve onto Roxas’s street and it earns a startled, garbled noise out of the blond. 

“You!” Roxas half-shouts, and Lea tries very, very hard not to laugh. “You’re trying _to kill me_.”

Silence follows, and Lea locks his phone and shoves it somewhere in his pocket as he pulls into the driveway of Roxas’s house. He honestly doesn’t mind looking after the poor kid, especially with stitches currently keeping his gums together in his mouth, but it’s definitely going to be a strange night.

Especially when Roxas begins to pout as Lea cuts the engine, and he has a feeling he knows why.

“My brother _ditched me_.”

“Sora didn’t ditch you,” Lea explains gently, absently patting Roxas’s knee, and Roxas throws his hands in the air and ends up smashing a fist against the window. Thankfully, the glass doesn’t break.

“He _ditched me_. For his _girlfriends_.”

“I don’t think Riku is his girlfriend.”

“Riku eats turtles,” Roxas mutters, and Lea quirks an eyebrow—there’s really no explanation for that train of thought. Painkillers, definitely. “Kairi eats… pigs…”

“Roxas.”

“I’m gonna be a _vegetarian_ ,” Roxas suddenly declares, throwing his hands in the air again and managing to hit the roof of Lea’s car. Still no damage. “I’m going to be _the best fucking vegetarian_. Ever. Pigs will _love me_.”

“Yes they will,” Lea agrees, if only to get Roxas _out of the car_ , and he opens his door and climbs out before walking around to the other side to do the same. Roxas doesn’t seem to notice, more occupied with the fact that he has hands, and Lea vows to never, _ever_ get all four teeth removed at once. He yanks on the handle and Roxas stares at the gaping hole in the vehicle.

“You broke the car,” he whispers, before frantically waving his hands _again_ and this time, he nearly hits Lea in the face. “You broke the car! My dad is gonna _murder us_ —”

“Okay,” Lea begins, reaching in to unhook the seat belt, and it’s a good thing Roxas is so fucking _light_. “First of all, this is my car. It’s called opening a door. Second, you are wasted out of your mind, kiddo. Let’s get you inside.”

“M’not _drunk_.” Roxas throws his arms around Lea’s neck, which enhances the difficulty of getting Roxas inside by an insurmountable amount. “I am just _peachy_.”

“Absolutely.” Lea half-drags him to the door, remembering to kick the passenger side shut before doing so, and he’s grateful that no one’s home—he doubts Roxas will ever live this down if Leon were to see. “You’re a peach, Rox. Very fruity.”

“Are you calling me _gay_?” Lea blinks and chances a glance down, but Roxas is merely doing a wonderful impersonation of a dead fish on land. “‘Cause I am not gay. I like _everyone_.”

Well, he’s not _wrong_ , and Lea definitely isn’t going to delve into the details of his best friend’s sexuality while said best friend is under the influence of a medication cocktail. He’s beginning to think the oral surgeon went a bit overboard, considering Lea has _more_ packets of Tylenol in his back pocket, but he’ll save that for another day.

Next task: getting Roxas downstairs to his bedroom.

“Well,” he says to the air, “at least you guys don’t sleep upstairs.”

“I sleep on Sora,” Roxas mutters under his breath, and Lea snorts, choking on a swallowed laugh as he leans the blond against the nearby wall. He toes off his shoes, setting them on the mat by the front door, before doing the same with Roxas’s hightops. The kid has decent fashion sense, but Lea hates it in this moment.

Lea glances at the stairs to aforementioned bedroom before focusing on Roxas again, and asks a careful, “D’you think you can walk downstairs?”

To which he gets a vehement, “I _am_ the fucking stairs!”

A definite no.

Maybe he should have kept recording. This would have been blackmail _gold_.

“Alright then,” Lea sighs, and Sora will one hundred percent straight up _murder_ him if he finds out what Lea is about to do, but he has faith in Roxas’s lack of recollection for this day. He walks over to the couch, grabs a cushion, and sets it by the top of the stairs. He used to love doing this as a kid, and Roxas loves the waterslide things that they use on the front lawn, so this could be fine. It’s totally fine.

“You _are_ trying to kill me,” Roxas whispers, sounding distinctly betrayed, and Lea bites his tongue to keep from laughing at the look on his face. Eyebrows raised, mouth curved into a weird, delicate frown from the swelling; Lea gets hit with a wave of affection at the sight. Definitely not the time.

“It’ll be fun,” he promises, patting the cushion. “We get you downstairs, settled in, and then we can watch Netflix to your little heart’s content.”

 _That_ apparently gets Roxas’s attention, and the blond takes a wobbly seat on the cushion with help from Lea and stretches his legs out. It’s not a steep set of stairs, barely any distance at all, and this is a terrible idea but Lea is not going to carry one hundred and twenty pounds of deadweight blond. Not happening. At least not down the _stairs_.

This is a much better approach.

“On three, Roxas. One.”

“I want a turtle.”

“Two.”

“I’ll name it Egg.”

“Three—”

And he pushes the cushion, heels digging into the carpet, and Roxas slides down gracefully with a high-pitched, cotton-garbled yell of, “ _Bananas!_ ”

Lea doesn’t want to know.

When he reaches the basement, Roxas is somehow still sitting upright, and there’s a strange expression on his face—Lea sees confusion, mostly, but also deep concern, and Lea waves a hand in front of Roxas’s face with a frown. He vaguely hopes he didn’t manage to dislodge a clot or something, but Roxas just blinks and stands up on unsteady legs, clinging to Lea like a wall and staring into space.

“I think,” he begins, nodding his head slowly, and Lea pays close attention to the way Roxas speaks, “I am God.”

Oh boy.

“Sure you are,” Lea murmurs, leading him over to his bed, and it’s a testament to how often Lea is over here that he even knows which bed is his—then again, it’s probably not that difficult to tell, considering Sora is the one with the Spiderman bedsheets and Roxas has the very tasteful How to Train Your Dragon sheets. Toothless is actually really very cute, but Lea doesn’t mention it.

“God demands juice,” Roxas suddenly proclaims, throwing his hands towards the heavens, and this time he _does_ manage to clip Lea in the nose. There’s a small hiss of pain that he clamps down on immediately, but Roxas still catches it, and he surges forward in what Lea _thinks_ might be an attempt to kiss it better.

Instead, Roxas smashes his forehead against Lea’s already stinging nose, and it’s not pleasant for anyone.

“ _Ow_ ,” Roxas says, before sticking his tongue out—or attempting to, anyway, considering he still has a mouth full of cotton. “Your face got in my way.”

“That tends to happen,” Lea mutters, relieved to find there’s no blood pouring out of his nose, but there’s a quickly reddening mark on Roxas’s forehead that drags a sigh out of Lea. Even now, he still bruises way too easily. “What were you trying to do, Rox?”

“This,” Roxas replies, and Lea has half a second to react before Roxas leans towards him a second time and plants a wet, gross kiss on the side of his nose. It’s the thought that counts, and there’s definitely some real effort there, but mostly it’s just very… slobbery. And faintly bloody.

It still has his heart doing a funny flip, though. Not the time.

“Thanks, buddy,” Lea teases, ruffling Roxas’s hair, and Roxas seems satisfied for the moment; Lea takes the opportunity to gently lay him down against his pillows, making sure he’s not flat on his back but still comfortable, and Roxas doesn’t waste any time in getting settled and dragging blankets up to his shoulders. “Laptop or PS3?”

“PS3,” Roxas mutters, pointing towards Sora’s bed, and Lea chuckles before wandering over to the television, flicking it on, and powering up the console. For a shared bedroom, it’s actually pretty roomy, and Lea is grateful that he had the foresight to share his Netflix password with the two of them.

“Alright!” he declares, grabbing the controller on his way back to the bed, and he climbs in beside Roxas but stays above the covers. “What’s on the list today?”

“Chopped.”

“I don’t think Chopped is on here.”

“Guy Fieri?”

“Convertible dude is not on here, either. Since when are you into cooking shows?”

“It’s the anesthetic.”

Lea blinks before the meaning kicks in, and he snorts—this is truly an incredible day.

“Aesthetic, you mean?”

“S’what I said, asshole.”

“Now you’re resorting to _name calling_? I’m wounded, Roxas.”

“No, _I’m_ wounded. There are aliens in my teeth.”

“Aliens, huh? Did you name them?”

Roxas seems to ponder that for a moment, brows furrowed as he works his brain, and Lea patiently waits for an answer as he skims the movie selection. Apparently either Roxas or Sora has been watching Grey’s Anatomy, and he wonders if Roxas would be up for something dramatic at the moment. In his state, he’ll probably predict the entire plot two seasons ahead.

“So the first one is Jimmy,” Roxas begins, nodding to himself, and Lea hums in response. “Second one is Nugget. Then there’s Larry and Taco Bell. The last one is Dorito because he looks like a piece of cheese.”

“So you have cheese in your teeth.”

“ _No_ , dumbass. _Aliens_. It just _looks_ like cheese, and that’s only Dorito.”

“Does Nugget look like a nugget?”

“Nah, he’s shaped like a balloon.”

“Uh-huh. What about Larry?”

“Don’t tell the others,” Roxas whispers, leaning against Lea’s side and covering his mouth. Lea doesn’t have the heart to tell him that if the aliens are inside of his teeth, they can hear him regardless. “—but Larry is my favourite.”

“Your secret is safe with me, dude,” Lea replies, giving Roxas a small grin, and he gets a dedicated nod in return. It’s one of the weirdest moments of Lea’s life, but it’s quite possibly the best, too. “Now let’s pick something to watch so you can relax.”

Roxas is quiet for a few minutes and Lea is pretty sure he’s fallen asleep, but then there’s a quiet murmur of, “Can we watch The Lion King?” that has Lea’s heart doing the weird flip-flop thing again, and he nods before searching it up and hitting play. Roxas shifts a bit, shifts some _more_ , and doesn’t stop fidgeting until Lea finally relents and raises his arm so Roxas can, essentially, cuddle up to him.

It’s totally the meds, but Lea isn’t complaining.

Instead, he drapes his arm over the blond’s shoulders, tucking him against his side carefully, and Roxas sniffs before deeming Lea comfortable enough to sleep on. The movie is quiet, Roxas even more so, and it’s… oddly nice like this. Roxas is a bit cold, always is, and Lea absently tugs him closer to share some warmth.

It doesn’t take long before Roxas ends up passing out.

So Lea makes due with Netflix, getting through The Lion King and some weird B-rated German movie he doesn’t understand, and it’s a few hours before Roxas begins to stir. Lea can _feel_ the puddle of drool on his shirt which, under any other circumstance would be _disgusting_ , turns out to be cute. Probably because Roxas is waking up very slowly, which means he’s all sleepy-eyed and groggy.

The meds have probably worn off by now too.

“Holy _shit_ ,” Roxas… sort of gurgles, and Lea gives him some space to come to as Roxas begins to sit up. “Oh my god, my _mouth_ , why is this—oh my _god_.”

The gauze is peeking out of Roxas’s mouth and Lea crawls in front of the blond, struggling not to laugh at the disgruntled ball of sunshine, before gently taking Roxas’s jaw in the palm of his hand.

“I have Tylenol for you,” he starts, mostly as a distraction because Roxas’s eyes are suspiciously wet and he’s much paler _now_ than he was before falling asleep. “Let’s see if… got it.” 

Lea tugs at the cotton, which comes out fairly easily, and Roxas keeps his mouth open as Lea checks the gums—no excess bleeding from either side, and it looks fairly clotted, so it could be worse. Still, he can only imagine how much pain Roxas is in, and he sets the bloody gauze in one hand and yanks the small blue packet of painkillers out of his pocket with the other.

“Do you know how old that water bottle is?” he asks casually, nodding to the half-empty bottle chilling on the nightstand, and Roxas scrunches up his nose and shakes his head. Lea sighs. “Okay, I’m gonna grab you a bottle of warm water. Sit tight and _don’t poke it with your tongue_.”

Roxas sticks out his tongue instead and Lea pats his knee, standing up and stretching out the kinks in his legs and shoulders. Roxas sits back against the pillows and doesn't seem to move much, and Lea wishes he had more to offer than small pills, but. A few days of pain is expected. He’ll make it.

So Lea heads upstairs and takes the cushion with him, straightening out the couch before tossing out the gauze. He washes his hands quickly, forgoing a bottle altogether and just grabbing a small glass and filling it with tap water. Nobody's home yet, which means Sora must still be out with Kairi and Riku, and he checks his phone to see… fourteen missed messages. 

Overkill, Sora. 

Typing out a quick _ur bro is fine stop worryin n enjoy the movie_ , Lea pockets his phone and grabs a banana from the fruit bowl; he should get some actual food for Roxas, maybe one of the pudding cups or the applesauce in the fridge, and he settles on pouring some of the cold sauce into a small bowl. He also grabs an ice pack from the freezer, a spoon from the drawer, and attempts to balance his load as he descends the stairs.

And, in the middle of the bed looking confused and _cold_ , is a shirtless Roxas.

Deciding to deal with it _after_ he has access to his hands again, Lea shakes his head and sets the glass of water and bowl of applesauce on the nightstand, followed by his banana, and folds his arms over his chest as he gives Roxas a _look_.

“There was blood on it,” he mutters, pointing to the discarded frog shirt and frowning. Lea totally understands. He gives Roxas a nod before pulling the blankets back, Roxas shifting back up on the bed and against the pillows, and Lea tries to make him as comfortable as possible. His cheeks are damp and he’s still pale, and Lea digs out the Tylenol again and cuts the package open with his teeth, dumping the small pills into Roxas’s waiting hand and reaching for the glass.

“It’ll last a few hours,” Lea explains gently, chewing the inside of his cheek as he watches Roxas down the pills and slowly sip at the water. It’s followed by a painful grimace, and Lea has to wonder why the _fuck_ they take out all four at the same time. This is torture to watch. “Just try and relax, yeah? I brought some applesauce down, so eat some of that so your sugar doesn’t drop or… something.”

“M’fine,” Roxas mumbles, but even that apparently causes him pain, and he sucks in a sharp breath before realizing he _can’t_ do that, and he buries his face in a pillow and nearly screams. “It _hurts_ oh my god I want to die.”

“I know,” Lea mutters, digging out the controller from the myriad of blankets, and Roxas drops his pillow to frown at Lea. “C’mon, shift so I can help get some food into you.”

“Not hungry,” Roxas replies tiredly, but he moves anyway, leaving a space open for Lea to sit. He reaches over for the applesauce and gives Roxas a _look_ : either he can feed himself or Lea can feed him, because either way, the blond is _eating_.

“...Fine,” Roxas eventually gives in, and Lea gives him a bright smile as he hands the bowl over. He eats slow—Lea notes that his hands are unsteady—but he eats nonetheless, careful not to agitate his mouth. The Tylenol must be kicking in, too, because there’s some colour returning to his cheeks and he doesn’t look on the verge of tears anymore.

Lea does _not_ breathe a sigh of relief.

“No more,” Roxas whispers after he gets through a quarter of the bowl. It’s better than nothing, and Lea gently pries it from his hands and sets it back on the nightstand. “Put on Despicable Me and let me sleep.”

“So demanding,” Lea teases, which earns him a half-hearted glare and a weak slap to his elbow, and Lea laughs as he flips through the queue again and finds the aforementioned movie. He throws it on, letting it fill the room with background noise, and Roxas doesn’t hesitate to lift up Lea’s arm and settle against his side all over again. There’s a hand jabbed into his ribs at some point, a bunch of blond hair shoved up his nose and in his mouth, before Roxas finally deems him comfortable enough.

Lea, of course, shifts him closer, because Roxas is cold and Lea is warm and that’s it.

That is absolutely it, even as Lea’s hand begins to card lightly through Roxas’s hair and Roxas groans quietly in pleasure. It’s fine. It’s cool.

“I want a minion,” is the last thing Roxas murmurs before his breathing evens out, and Lea chuckles silently and doesn’t think about the way Roxas’s arm finds its way across Lea’s stomach to cling at the curve of his hip.

The _second_ time Roxas wakes up, he ends up slapping Lea in the face, and Lea was, unfortunately, half-asleep, and it leaves him jerking awake and nearly falling off the bed. Apologies begin to roll off Roxas’s tongue, but Lea just waves him off, gathering his bearings while Roxas shakes off the excess of his nap. There’s no sunlight peeking in through the highrise window, which means they’ve slept until dark, and there’s the sound of distant footsteps upstairs.

Not alone anymore, and Roxas stretches out on the bed and flops on top of Lea.

“Still in pain?” Lea asks, followed by a yawn, and Roxas shrugs, resting his head in the crook of Lea’s neck. A hand comes up and rests in blond hair, lightly scratching. “Good, ‘cause I only have one more Tylenol and you’ll want that in the morning.”

“You staying the night?” Roxas asks, voice muffled, and Lea shrugs awkwardly.

“I can,” he replies quietly, fingers idly tracing the knob of Roxas’s spine. “Your bro should be home by now.”

“Nah, he’s gonna stay the night at Riku’s with Kairi.”

“So I get roped into Roxas duty?”

Roxas lifts his head up, digging an elbow into Lea’s chest and propping his chin up in the palm of his hand, and asks, “Are you complaining?”

Lea, hand having been dislodged, boops Roxas on the nose and laughs.

“Definitely not complaining,” he teases, brushing Roxas’s bangs away from his eyes, and the look Roxas gives him is terrifyingly real; just as bright as ever, even with the haze of pain and painkillers, and just as intense. “You’re very cuddly when suffering from awful mouth pain.”

“We’re never speaking of this again,” but even so, Roxas doesn’t hide the fact that he’s enjoying the attention, leaning into Lea’s hand with half-lidded eyes and looking extremely relaxed. “We can have a slumber party. You can paint my nails and I’ll tell you all of Hayner’s juicy gossip.”

“Juicy gossip, huh?” Lea laughs, and Roxas grins weakly before climbing off his human pillow and yawning. He must still be pretty tired, or maybe it’s just the meds, but Lea vows to keep an eye on him—he doubts Sora will appreciate his brother spontaneously dying in his care overnight.

Bad train of thought. He ignores it.

However, Roxas _did_ mention nail painting, and Lea isn’t going to pass up an opportunity to show off his artistic talent on his best friend. Roxas slides open the drawer on his nightstand and pulls out a bottle of pink nail polish and a bottle of blue, and Lea shouldn’t be surprised that Roxas has these at all.

“Sora was really into nail polish when he was seven,” Roxas explains at Lea’s eyebrow raise, and he gets a shrug in return. “Leon thought it was hilarious.”

“Hand it over,” Lea mutters, and Roxas does so, holding out a hand and reaching for the unknown-age bottle of water with the other. Lea is tempted to stop him, but it’s Roxas. Instead, he uncaps the blue polish and begins to apply a fresh coat of colour to Roxas’s thumbnail.

“You know,” the blond begins, recapping the bottle with one hand and setting it back on the table, “if you have any photographic or video evidence of today on your phone, I’m gonna have to kill you.”

“Oh?” Lea hums, crossing his legs for better support. “You can try.”

Roxas snorts, sitting back against the wall of pillows, and they fall into a comfortable silence; Lea has to admit that it _is_ pretty strange to be painting Roxas’s nails, of all things, but he has a feeling it’s more of a distraction than anything. The swelling in his jaw and cheeks hasn’t gone down completely yet, and Lea knows Roxas is still in quite a bit of pain. It sucks, and he wants to do more, but the best he can do is distract and keep him occupied until he either passes out again or until the pain disperses.

It’ll probably be the former.

When he’s finished with the first hand, he reaches for Roxas’s other one and begins on that one, Roxas blowing on his nails to dry them, which, _no_.

“Hey,” Lea mutters poking Roxas in the stomach, and the blond shoots him a glare before realizing _why_ he shouldn’t do that. “Careful.”

“Hurry up.”

“Have a hot date tonight?” Lea teases, applying paint to the last nail, and Roxas takes his hands back and splays himself out on the bed.

“Yeah,” he murmurs, staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars and planets on the ceiling. “You, obviously.”

Lea will deny that Roxas’s comment gets a rise out of him, and he caps the bottle and sets it on the nightstand before laying down next to the blonde. He’s not sure if Roxas is so clingy because of the lingering effects of the painkillers, or if he’s just unusually affectionate tonight, but he ends up crawling half on top of Lea all over again and resting his head on his chest.

Roxas is still cold, and Lea drags some of the blankets up to cover them both.

“Thanks,” Roxas says quietly and Lea hums in acknowledgement, not really sure why Roxas is thanking him at all but too tired to care. It’s not exactly _easy_ looking after Roxas when he’s in pain. “For not ditching me like my lame brother.”

“You had to threaten bodily harm to get Sora to go out today,” Lea reminds him, and Roxas snorts. “He owes me _so_ many gummy bears.”

“You hate gummy bears.”

“Yes, but you don’t.”

Silence, but Roxas clings a bit tighter, a bony hand curved around a pale hip, and Lea holds him a bit tighter—not many confessions today despite the air, but enough to leave him feeling some sort of hollow, and Roxas isn’t pushing him away or trying to do this on his own. It could be much, much worse, and Lea is content like this. 

“So many gummy bears, then,” Roxas echoes, and Lea nods in agreement, echoing earlier and gently carding his fingers through Roxas’s hair.

“Go to sleep,” he mutters, letting his own eyes fall shut, and Roxas hums against Lea and begins to doze. “I’ll still be here in the morning.”

“Good.” A yawn, more shifting, stillness. “‘Cause you have my last Tylenol.”

Lea almost, _almost_ laughs.

(his heart will beat normally eventually.)

 

**Author's Note:**

> u can find me over at [tumblr](http://skysugars.tumblr.com) ♥


End file.
